Musings: Proud as Punch

Ashley Lukens of the Hawaii Center for Food Safety is so dang pleased with herself.

And why not? She's shown us, through the group's 2015 annual report, that she's a master at deception and spin. To wit:

I often wonder if our next generation were telling the story of the food movement in Hawaiʻ i, how they would tell it. I know that I speak for the entire HCFS team when I say we are honored to play a small part in this story.

Actually, HCFS has played a very, very big role, bringing in money, legal support, relentless PR, lobbying at the state Legislature, organizing tactics and some super slick propaganda, which it highlights in the annual report.

Their propaganda pieces include a fantasy-based, Makana-narrated animated piece that's just right for indoctrinating school kids. To wit:

[T]he video was a great learning tool, and the animation helped make the concepts accessible and understandable for our middle schoolers.” — Abigail Rotholz, Hawaii School Garden instructor

Then there's the oft-discredited, but never corrected, “Pesticides in Paradise” report, which has been unquestioningly quoted in anti-GMO media coverage and characterized by the misinformed as “educational tools.” To wit:

“These educational tools have played a key role in my efforts to bring pesticide and food issues to the fore with Hawai‘i health providers and early childhood professionals.” —Lynn Wilson, PhD, children’s health advocate

Ashley boasts that her biggest audience for the "Pesticides in Paradise" report was at Hoolehua, Molokai. You may recall that I wrote about that presentation:

Something monumental happened on Molokai last week. The people didn't get played.

Ashley Lukens, director of the Hawaii Center for Food Safety, brought her anti-GMO/anti-ag/anti-pesticide dog and pony show to Kaunakakai. And frankly, she got her ass whooped, metaphorically speaking.

Facing a crowd that included not her usual true believers, but folks who actually work in the seed fields, Lukens was peppered with questions she wouldn't answer and criticisms she couldn't deflect until she turned tail and ran.

“I'm gonna shut it down here because I don't see it going in a good direction,” she told a crowd that began calling out, “why won't you take all the questions?” and “why didn't you bring someone from the health department?” and “what kind of doctor are you?”

But in Ashley's world, that sincere, spontaneous expression of public outrage became “the industry’s use of intimidation tactics to discredit the report.”

Why, the incident, and her subsequent spin, even earned its own quarter-page in the 16-page annual report, where Ashley gushed:

“This incredible story earned national attention and was shared on social media by the Food Babe, Dr. Bronner's, GMO Free USA.”

Wow. The Food Babe AND Dr. Bronner's. Now that's saying something. Though nothing I'd want to be associated with.

Also interesting was the report's section on Partnership Development, which listed such echo chamber inhabitants as the AiKea Movement, Aloha Aina Project, Babes Against Biotech, Beach Road Farms, Down to Earth Hawai‘i, Earthjustice, GMO Free chapters on all islands, Hawai‘i Alliance for Nonprofit Organizations, Hawai‘i Alliance for Progressive Action, Hawai‘i Farmers Union United, Hawai‘i Food Policy Council, Moms on a Mission (MoM) hui, Shaka Movement, Sierra Club of Hawaii and Surfrider.

Ashley also boasts that HCFS “hosted two powerful 'Movement Building for ea' Workshops in partnership with native Hawaiian organization Movement for Aloha no ka Aina (MANA).” 

In case you haven't heard of it, MANA was founded by Ikaika Hussey in 2008. Ikaika is also on the board of Gary Hooser's HAPA, and publishes the Hawaii Independent (an on-line website I wrote for some years back, until Ikaika failed to pay what was promised) and Summit Magazine.

One of those who participated in these “powerful” workshop trainings was Maui fashion designer and self-proclaimed ag expert Tiare Lawrence, who cites membership in the Aloha 'Aina Project — one of HCFS' new partners. In case you're unfamilar, it's headed by the Putin-friendly "man who would be king" Edwin de Silva, and his ali'i mana'o advisor, Lanny Sinkin.

Neither MANA nor the Aloha Aina Project are registered with the Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs.

But they do get funding from Common Counsel, a California-based foundation that also began giving money to the HCFS this year. And they're both active in the anti-Thirty Meter Telescope project on Hawaii, with Sinkin speaking for the “king.”

Yes, it's not just an anti-GMO, anti-pesticide movement. It's an anti-ag (except for organic), anti-science, anti-technology (aside from the kind that allows them to use social media) pro-independence movement.

All snuggled up together with overlapping members and funding. In short, it's a small, fringe group of people with some sizable dough trying to make their movement look a lot bigger — and a lot more mainstream — than it really is.